Institutional Memberships

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Since no library has limitless resources, libraries must work together to bring their patrons valuable access to materials. Consortium and resource sharing efforts are important in providing access to materials.

  • American Theological Library Association (Atla) – Affiliate member (SCS only) -- A professional association of over 800 individual, institutional, and affiliate members providing programs, products, and services in support of theological and religious studies libraries and librarians. The Atla Reciprocal Borrowing Program allows online and distance education students check-out privileges with other participating libraries.
  • Atla Reciprocal Borrowing Program – Creates an arrangement between participating Atla members to grant check-out privileges to each other’s patrons. The user simply walks into a participating library, shows proof of current enrollment at another participating library, and checks out materials based on the library’s local lending policies. The user is responsible for adhering to local policy and returning the materials in a timely fashion.
  • Christian Library Consortium -- institutional member -- Promotes the sharing of resources between institutional members, and participation in the OCLC access group, Christian Library Network: CL@N.
  • OCLC, the world's largest library consortium, which provides access to an information-sharing network of libraries. Interlibrary Loan is a cooperative borrowing and lending service among these thousands of libraries. OCLC institutional symbol: CHCA.
  • Southern California Theological Library Association (SCATLA) -- institutional member (SCS only) -- A cooperative arrangement between 21 theological libraries in southern California. It allows graduate theology students to visit and borrow materials from participating libraries.
  • Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC) -- Established to develop resource-sharing relationships among the libraries of private academic institutions in California. Through this consortium the library is able to provide access to a number of web-accessible electronic resources.